Spartan (42 page)

Karas responded from high on the rampart. ‘These people have long suffered as slaves. Many of our men died in battle, serving your warriors, but their blood was held of no account and
reviled. And so we left Laconia to return to our ancient homeland and we rebuilt this city. There is not one of us who hasn’t suffered injustice or beatings or torture at your hands, but it
is not our desire to exact revenge. We only wish to live freely and in peace. If you leave this land, you will have nothing to fear from us, but for nothing in the world will we accept to take your
yoke back onto our shoulders. We would rather risk our lives defending our freedom, and we will never surrender. Never.’

‘Beware, Helots!’ shouted the Spartan. ‘Our ancestors destroyed this city once and we will do so again!’

‘Out of here!’ ordered Karas, furious.

The Spartan looked up derisively. ‘A one-eyed man and a cripple,’ he sneered, turning to the men accompanying him. ‘Fine leaders this ragged crew has chosen for
themselves!’ But he had no time to say another word. Karas lifted up an enormous boulder, raised it above his head and hurled it with a roar. The Spartan realized the giant’s might too
late and his bronze shield was lifted in vain. The boulder flattened him to the ground, crushing his chest and spraying his guts through the openings on his cuirass. The others, stunned, laid down
their spears. They gathered the corpse onto a shield and crept off in silence.

The scouts that Karas sent off over the surrounding hills to estimate the strength of the enemy troops reported back that their number seemed quite small. In fact, the ephors had not dared strip
Sparta of defences, fearful that the Arcadians and Messenians would rise up against them. They had requested aid from the Athenians and hoped that a large contingent would be sent from Attica,
trusting mainly in the support of Cimon, who led the aristocratic party and had championed a strong alliance between the two most powerful forces in Greece. At that point they would unleash the
decisive attack and annihilate the Helots entrenched behind the walls of Ithome. But by the time Cimon had overcome with great difficulty the strong opposition of the democrats, thanks solely to
his personal prestige, and the assembly of Athens had agreed to send five battalions of hoplites to Messenia, the summer was ending. No one could hope to conquer the city before the rainy season.
The bad weather would make it difficult, if not completely impossible, to maintain a siege.

Antinea gave birth to a boy at the beginning of the autumn. He was given the name Aristodemus, in accordance with the wishes of the elders. He was strong and healthy, with dark hair like his
father’s and green eyes like his mother’s. When the midwife brought him to Kleidemos in a basket, his soul was deeply moved. He took the child in his arms and held him to his chest,
covering him with his cape. He prayed, from the bottom of his heart: ‘O gods, you who live eternally and have power over life and death, you who reserved such a bitter fate for me, taking me
– so small and defenceless – from my father’s arms . . . if it was written that my suffering was necessary to atone for some ancient misdeed, I beg of you, be satisfied now with
the harsh punishment inflicted on an innocent person and spare this child, whom I have generated with immense love.’

So prayed Kleidemos, his soul full of hope and of anguish.

*

The arrival of the Athenian troops did little to advance operations and the Spartan officers soon realized that many of their allies were of the democratic persuasion and were
loath to fight against the Helot rebels in order to reduce them to slavery. It was even rumoured that several of the Athenian commanders had made contact with the Messenians in the surrounding
countryside. The Messenians were actually Spartan subjects and were tied to the city by a rigid pact of alliance, but they admired the courage of the defenders of Ithome nonetheless.

Suspicious and embarrassed, the ephors dismissed the Athenian contingent in the end, claiming that their aid was no longer needed. The Athenian army returned to Attica, but Sparta’s
gesture raised such intense indignation in the assembly that Cimon, who was held responsible for the stinging rebuke, was violently attacked by his adversaries, who demanded his dismissal and
exile. The proposal was put to a vote and the valorous commander, winner of many battles on land and at sea, was forced to abandon his city. The democrats reclaimed power and the already difficult
relations between Sparta and Athens became even colder.

In the meantime the ephors and elders, having repaired most of the earthquake damage and regained control of the situation in Laconia, decided to take the city of Ithome by storm. It was time;
many Messenians had joined the rebels and there was a real danger that the entire region might be lost to them.

The following spring an army of five thousand hoplites surrounded the city and laid siege. When the hot winds from the south had completely dried the earth King Archidamus gave orders for the
final attack. It was a hazy day at the beginning of the summer and the king had divided his troops into four large battalions, preceded by Cretan archers and light infantry whose mission was to
batter the bastions with any type of projectile, while the line infantry scaled the walls. The warriors began their march at daybreak, converging at the base of the mountain below Ithome.

Kleidemos and Karas, armed from head to toe, positioned all the able men on the walls, while the women and children brought stones and sand which were loaded onto shields to heat them under the
blazing sun. Antinea would not leave Kleidemos’ side, passing him the arrows for his great horn bow.

When King Archidamus had the trumpets sounded, his warriors began climbing the slopes of the mountain in a silent march, compact, shoulder to shoulder. His archers were the first to reach the
walls, and began to shoot clouds of arrows at the bastions, where the defenders were trying to protect themselves with their shields. When the hoplites, slower and weighed down by their armour,
drew close to the walls, their archers and slingers parted ranks to let them through without ever interrupting their attack. A strong wind had come up, raising clouds of dust on the sides of the
mountain and the Spartan warriors pushed on through that fog, heads low, their armour and crests whitened. Horrible spectres, harbingers of death.

Kleidemos drew his sword to give the signal from the bastions on high. His archers took aim at the enemy with a zeal born of desperation. Many of the light infantrymen supporting the Spartan
troops fell, but the descending arrows accomplished little, shattering against the shields of the hoplites, who continued to advance in the dust. The sun was high now, and their armour gleamed
through the haze. The various divisions had reached the top of the mountain and they locked together, enclosing Ithome in their grip.

From the tops of the towers, they seemed a swarm of monstrous insects in metallic shells. The defenders began to hurl down stones and overturn their shields full of burning sand which poured
down on their assailants, sinking in between the plates of their cuirasses and causing them to back off, tormented by burns. But others came forward to replace them, while the light infantrymen
approached with scores of ladders, covered by the dense rain of Cretan arrows. Kleidemos realized that responding with arrow fire had become useless, since the enemy were now sheltered by the
protruding bastions. He abandoned his horn bow and turned back towards Antinea to ask for a spear.

At that moment an arrow shot by a Cretan archer descended from above in a long fall and struck Antinea, who collapsed with a cry. Kleidemos dropped his shield and took her into his arms, but in
the meantime hundreds of Spartan hoplites had reached the top of the ladders and were clambering over the bastions from every direction. The defenders were at a loss to contain them. Karas, just a
short distance away, was assaulted by a group of light infantry who had surmounted the bastion. He ran one of them through with his sword; the invader fell headlong over the parapet with the iron
blade stuck in his body. Unarmed now, Karas grabbed another of his aggressors, lifted him up bodily and threw him against his comrades who were still climbing up, pitching them into a ruinous
fall.

The giant turned and saw Kleidemos on top of the eastern tower. He was holding Antinea, her breast stained with blood, and he was being attacked by a group of Spartans with their swords bared.
Karas was horrified at the sight: It was as if King Aristodemus had returned from the dead, his sacrificed daughter between his arms, ready to be swallowed up into Hades. He filled his huge chest
and roared, overriding the din of the battle and the cries of the wounded. He shouted ‘Save the king!’ as he lunged forwards, pulling a spear from the grip of a cadaver that lay on the
sentry walk. Kleidemos reacted, laying Antinea gently on the ground. He spun around, drawing his sword: he was completely surrounded. Overcoming every obstacle, Karas arrived just in time to break
up the enemy circle. One of them turned against him, but Karas thrust out his spear. It penetrated the warrior’s shield and cuirass and pierced his breast; the giant lifted him up on its tip
and threw him at the others, who backed off, terrified. Kleidemos flanked him, whirling his sword, and the assailants were flung back over the parapet.

At that sight, the Helot combatants took heart and regained control of the bastion, driving off the enemy and pushing away the ladders, engulfing those beneath in a hail of stones and darts,
hurling beams torn from the parapet. Kleidemos picked up Antinea then and brought her to safety inside a shelter where the women were caring for the wounded.

The Spartans sent a delegation asking for a truce so they could recover their dead. It was granted, and the litter bearers ascended slowly beneath the walls of Ithome to collect their fallen
men, recomposing as best they could their mangled, stone-crushed limbs. King Archidamus, standing at the entrance to his camp, watched the sad procession of bearers returning with the corpses of
his hoplites. He looked at them, one by one, his jaw tight and his fists clenched. When they had all passed, he raised his gaze towards the city. The setting sun stained the mountain slopes red,
dark red, like the blood of his warriors.

A
NTINEA FOUGHT OFF DEATH
at length. After the arrow had been removed from her shoulder, she was devoured by a raging fever. Kleidemos would spend long
hours at her bedside every night when he returned from the walls, stroking her burning brow and imploring the gods to save her. The baby was cared for by a wet nurse, a woman whose own child had
been stillborn and who had enough milk to nourish Antinea’s son. The elders of the city had raised a modest sanctuary over the ruins of the ancient temple of Zeus Ithometa, where they offered
supplications to the god for the health of their chief and the salvation of his bride.

In the end, their pleas were heeded and Antinea slowly recovered but her life was filled with anguish whenever she saw Kleidemos donning his armour and taking up his sword. Rain and cold came
with the winter, and a little peace as military operations relented. The Spartans restricted their efforts to maintaining a small contingent in the valley, making it possible for the people of
Ithome to take in supplies. They would leave at night, a few at a time, with their pack animals, loading them up with wheat in the nearby towns of the Messenians.

In the villages they could also glean news on what was happening in the surrounding area and the rest of the Peloponnese. And so Kleidemos realized that Sparta was in serious difficulty with its
neighbouring states, especially with the Argives, who had always been hostile, and the Arcadians, who could not tolerate their hegemony. For this reason, he hoped to be able to prolong
Ithome’s resistance.

As spring drew near and his son had begun to walk and babble his first words, Kleidemos considered what might happen if Sparta decided to concentrate all its forces on an attack of Ithome. When
rumour reached the council that the ephors and elders had decided to put an end to the stalemate in Messenia once and for all, they urged Kleidemos to take little Aristodemus and Antinea to
safety.

Kleidemos asked Karas to take his wife, his son and his ageing mother far away from Ithome, to some safe place in Arcadia or Argolis where he could reach them or from where they could be called
back once he had won freedom for his people and himself. Karas thought it best to carry out the mission before the spring campaign, and so Kleidemos one night told Antinea about his intentions.

‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve learned that Sparta has decided to terminate this war, which can mean only one thing, in their minds: destroying Ithome and annihilating or
enslaving our people. I’ve come to a decision. I want you out of harm’s way, along with our child and my mother. Karas is ready to take you to a secret place in Arcadia where you will
be safe with a family of good people he knows well. I will stay here to defend the city. If we manage to hold out, or to defeat the Spartans, we will finally have earned our freedom. And then
you’ll come back to me, or I’ll come to get you.’ Antinea burst into tears. ‘Is this the luck you’re wishing me? You’re crying as if I were already
dead.’

Antinea turned towards him and held him tightly. ‘Please don’t send me away! I beg of you, do not send me away. I will die of anguish without you, without knowing what’s
happening to you. I’m sure I won’t be able to bear it!’

‘You will,’ replied Kleidemos firmly, gently breaking off her embrace. ‘Think of our son: he needs you.’

Antinea was inconsolable. ‘You’ll never survive! The Spartans won’t stop until they’ve razed the city to the ground. I want to die here with you, with my son, if the gods
will it, with my people.’

‘No, Antinea, you don’t know what you’re saying. Now, I’ve made a decision and you must abide by it. You will depart the first night of the new moon, with Karas.
I’m having you leave to protect you from a serious risk, but the situation is not hopeless. The next Spartan campaign will be led by King Pleistarchus. He is the son of Leonidas. I will ask
to meet with him, to talk – perhaps we can avoid a fruitless massacre. Not even Sparta can put its warriors’ lives recklessly at risk. Many of them died in the earthquake, and many more
have fallen in this war.’